Mock attack ads of 1800: Mistress importer vs. incest supporter

Think this election is nasty? The libertarian magazine Reason has put out this video with mock attack ads from the John Adams-Thomas Jefferson election of 1800, using language uttered in that campaign. Would you vote for the blind, bald, crippled, toothless man who was importing mistresses from Europe and wanted a war with France or the son of a half-breed Indian squaw who wanted to openly teach and practice murder, robbery, rape, incest and adultery? Tough call.

The pair of founding fathers and former friends wound up writing each other frendly letters in retirement. But for another leading figure of the day, Alexander Hamilton, the “Creole bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar,” the aftermath of the disputed 1800 election proved fatal.
According to “Mudslinger,” political science professor Kerwin C. Swint’s book about negative campaigns, 1800 was only the fifth worst in American history. Three of the four that outrank it are from the 19th century, but he says the period from 1988 to the present is pretty darn bad too.